


i just wanna talk about nothing with somebody who means something

by angelica_barnes



Series: ABC [25]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Temporary Character Death, except more like 10 plus one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 08:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17097329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes
Summary: the ten christmases Leo spent alone and the one he didn't25. yours.





	i just wanna talk about nothing with somebody who means something

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "Real Friends" by Camila Cabello
> 
> based off :
> 
> Better Place - Rachel Platten  
> True Love - P!NK  
> How Long Will I Love You - Ellie Goulding  
> Vanilla Twilight - Owl City  
> Where Are You, Christmas - Pentatonix  
> Merry Xmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon  
> Do They Know It’s Christmas - Band Aid 1984  
> We Need A Little Christmas - Glee version  
> Just For Now - Kelly Clarkson  
> Baby, It’s Cold Outside - Kelly Clarkson ft. Ronnie Dunn  
> I Don’t Wanna Spend One More Christmas Without You - NSYNC  
> Last Christmas - WHAM!  
> Merry Christmas, Darling - Christina Perri  
> I’ll Be Home - Meghan Trainor  
> All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey

 

 

**be kind**

**for everyone you meet**

**is fighting a hard battle.**

 

**\- Plato**

 

**1.** _where are you, Christmas? why can’t I find you?_

 

The first Christmas Leo spends alone is the year his mother dies.

She’d been baking cookies for them while he peeked at the small amount of badly wrapped packages beneath the tree. She’d reached into the oven to pull out the tray, calling his name, and he’d rushed in and caught sight of the fire burning on the stove.

Leo’s always been drawn to fire, though he hasn’t figured out why and won’t for a few months more.

He reaches inside the oven, just to touch it, just to get a little closer, and his mother screams and jumps forward to grab him.

Her apron sweeps forward and catches on the flames. From there it spreads to the cupboards the apron brushes, and from them to the walls, and soon the room is burning with his mother and Leo is safe and cold in her arms.

In truth, he doesn’t spend that Christmas alone. He spends it at the police station, wrapped in a warm blanket with multiple sympathetic officers checking in on him. But it doesn’t matter.

His mother’s dead; Christmas may as well be too.

 

_ why have you gone away? _

 

**2.** _ and so this is Christmas. and what have you done? _

 

It’s been a year and he’s run away from his sixth foster home. The system won’t want him back, but they’ll chase him for awhile out of obligation to the law. So he’s sleeping in a secluded corner of the closed public library and hoping that they won’t come looking here because he’s paranoid; if you’re searching for a hungry and lost kid, a library is the last place you’d think to look and Leo knows it.

He keeps his hands in his gloves and tucked against his sides, too afraid to ever reach out and touch something. He closes his eyes, leans his head against the nearest bookshelf, and imagines himself in the warmth of someone else’s arms.

He slowly nods off and dreams of a pale angel with ebony black hair, and comes to at the touch of someone’s hand on his arm.

He screams in alarm and curls into a ball, pressing himself against the wall, but when no attack comes, he peeks out from between his arms and sees a man smiling down at him warmly. There’s a twinkle in his eyes that suggests mischief.

“Hello, Leo,” the man says, extending a hand. “I’m Chiron, pleased to meet you.”

Leo’s estatic to have found someone to spend Christmas with, many someones, it seems, but as he leaves clinging to Chiron’s hand, he catches sight of the clock and its bright, bold numbers.

12:04.

Christmas is long over.

 

_ war is over if you wanted. _

 

 

**3.** do _ they know it’s Christmas time at all? _

 

Leo’s first year at Camp Half-Blood is less than desirable. No one wants to talk to him, not even his brothers and sisters in the Hephaestus cabin. He’s an outcast for refusing to use his fire magic, and he’s not confident that his campmates’ opinions would change if they knew the reason why, so he tells no one and keeps to himself.

The only one kind enough to talk to him is Chiron. Leo clings to him, and as he’s the youngest camper there, Chiron lets him. Smiles at him warmly and lends Leo books and movies and other things that he can use to entertain himself rather than battle training.

Of course, this only earns him the title of “teacher’s pet”.

Soon enough, the Ares kids have made it a habit to torture him. Breakfast comes with taunts. Lunch with nicknames. Dinner with punches. All other times, Leo holds on to Chiron for dear life.

But on Christmas Eve they corner him in an outhouse. They lock him in the girls’ bathroom and he bangs on the door, screaming and crying for them to let him out. He can hear their laughter fading as they leave him there.

The door is wood. He could burn it down, but he’s too afraid.

He checks his watch periodically, drifting off around four in the afternoon and not waking up until three the next morning with cramps and aches all over.

This Christmas he does spend entirely, completely, utterly alone.

 

_ let them know it’s Christmas time. _

 

 

**4.** for _ we’ve grown a little leaner, grown a little colder, grown a little sadder, grown a little older. _

 

Leo runs away from Camp Half-Blood in early December. He’s been trained enough to know vaguely how to fight, and he’s figured out that in times of extreme emotion, his body catches fire no matter how hard he tries to control it. One of his brothers, Charles Beckendorf, told him when he first arrived of another camp, for Roman kids, called Camp Jupiter. Leo’ll go there. He’s sure it can’t be worse than here.

But as soon as he reaches the bottom of the hill Thalia’s tree sits atop, the monsters come storming forward. At most three at a time, but still they keep reappearing as he goes along, and soon enough he’s so exhausted he can’t bear to take another step.

He sleeps.

Then he moves, again, and on and on until it’s been nearly a month and he can barely hear or see anything as he trudges along, sword dragging behind him.

He collapses against a tree in the middle of a forest, falling asleep almost as soon as his eyes are shut.

He awakens to a blonde kid smiling sweetly at him, hand outstretched to help him up. Leo flushes with embarrassment and looks down at his worn sneakers as he stands, brushing himself off. The blonde kid just keeps on smiling, picking twigs out of Leo’s hair.

“Uh…” Leo rubs the back of his neck, a nervous habit, and gives an awkward smile. “Good morning?”

The blonde laughs and grins, pink painting his cheeks. “Hi! I’m Jason, son of Jupiter. Found you on morning patrol.”

Leo looks around frantically and Jason’s hand is suddenly on his shoulder, calming him. Leo looks up into Jason’s kind, twinkling eyes and cocks his head.

“Relax, it’s just me. You got a name?”

Leo swallows thickly and nods. Jason waits, then raises his eyebrows in amusement.

“You gonna tell me?”

“Oh!” Leo jumps. “Sorry. Um, Leo. Son of… Hephaestus?”

Jason smiles. “Vulcan?”

Leo shrugs. “I guess. Can I keep Hephaestus, though?”

Jason shrugs, wrapping an arm around Leo’s shoulders. “Sure, man. Come on, let’s get you back to camp.”

As they’re walking, Jason asking questions and Leo mumbling one word answers, Leo glances down at his watch and realizes that it’s the 26th.

“Dammit,” he swears, and Jason looks over at him and gives an apologetic smile.

“Sorry you missed Christmas.”

Leo meets his eyes and cracks a small grin, shrugging.

“I think I’ll live.”

 

_ and I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder. I need a little Christmas now. _

 

 

**5.** I _ think something is burning! now you’ve ruined the whole thing! _

 

Camp Jupiter suits Leo well. He’s got Jason, and Piper, and Hazel and Frank and all that jazz. They throw him a surprise party on his birthday, and he cries, because it’s the first time he’s celebrated his birthday in about five years.

Nobody bullies him here. He goes to battle training, and learns the tricks, and finds he’s actually quite gifted at fire magic. Jason talks him out of panic attacks and Hazel helps him practice control, because if anyone knows what it’s like to be deadly, it’s her. Piper brings him out of his shell to talkative and charming, and Frank is just someone who’s nice to sit and be quiet next to.

Jason’s the one Leo first comes out to. Accidentally. Jason’s teasing him about how cute he and Hazel might be together if Leo would just give her a try, and Leo just blurts that Hazel likes Frank and he likes his girls like his likes his coffee and then babbles on about how much he hates coffee.

Jason just laughs and hugs him, effectively cutting Leo off. Leo smiles into Jason’s shoulder and realizes that he can be himself here, with anyone, but there’s no one he’d rather do it with than Jason.

(Not that he has a crush on Jason, just, y’know, it’s really nice to have a friend who doesn’t care about anything you are so long as you’re happy.)

But they all have to leave on a quest a week before Christmas, one that’s supposed to last two days but ends up taking two weeks, and so Leo spends the days and nights alone in his cabin, trying to distract himself from his fear of other people and his fear of being alone.

In the end, the fear wins, and he ends up playing video games by himself and wishing that his friends would just come knocking on the door so he could actually spend at least one Christmas with someone he cares about.

With someone he can be sure isn’t dead.

 

_ it’s that time of year, leave all our hopelessness aside. I’m sinking along your side. _

 

 

**6.** _this welcome has been so nice and warm._

 

For his birthday this year, Leo’s friends give him a bunker. They call it Bunker Nine, and apparently it’s one of the old Vulcan workshops that most kids have stopped using. Now, it’s Leo’s and Leo’s only.

He spends most of his days in there. It’s quiet, secluded, and the Aphrodite kids can’t get close to him. (Ten of them tried love spells on him last week. On the same day. At the same time. ALL GIRLS. It was awful.) Only his friends are allowed in.

But sometimes he locks the door. So he can have some alone time and not have to pretend to be fine. December is one of those months he’s always off, because his mom is dead and he misses her and it’s all his fault and he can’t put on a brave face about it in front of anyone, let alone his friends.

So he locks himself in Bunker Nine around the fifteenth, starts building a dragon he’s fondly calling Festus, and lives off the Coke and sandwiches in his half-working fridge.

Jason breaks down the door on the 29th, all of his friends looking frazzled and worried, and he looks down at them from atop Festus’ back.

His face drains of color and frustration, bleeding into shame as he realizes that this time, spending Christmas alone was entirely his fault.

What kind of idiot forgets?

 

_ I really can’t stay... ah, but it’s cold outside. _

 

 

**7.** _I don’t want to light a fire, unless it will warm your heart._

 

Leo meets Nico di Angelo the year they’re all called in for their quest. The Seven who will save the world, and now, it seems, their eighth.

Nico is unlike anyone Leo’s ever met. It’s not that he’s gay - Leo knows exactly what that’s like. It’s not that he’s like a hundred years old - Leo’s friends with Hazel. It’s not that he’s beautiful - come on, Leo regularly hangs out with the likes of boys like Jason Grace and Piper Mclean.

No, it’s not any of that.

It’s that he’s sad.

It doesn’t take a genius to see it, not like with Leo, who hides it so well almost no one can tell how wrecked he is inside. But it’s somehow still subtle, a hardly noticeable detail with Nico, the fact that he’s just… sad.

It’s this about him that draws Leo closer. That makes him force himself into the seat next to Nico at dinner. That causes him to offer to take Nico’s watch with him. That pushes him to talk with Nico instead of just about him.

It’s this about Nico that makes Leo kiss him, one night after dinner and during their watch, in the middle of Nico’s ramblings about Mythomagic.

When he pulls away, he’s afraid of the expression he’s about to catch sight of, but one of Nico’s rare, genuine smiles is the first thing Leo sees when he opens his eyes, and he cracks a grin.

“Not bad, eh?”

Nico huffs out a laugh.

“Shut up.”

Leo beams and leans in closer.

“ _ Make _ me.”

Nico blinks, smiles wickedly, and does.

 

_ there’s nothing more than I want from you than to lie here together and stay here forever with you. _

 

 

**8.** _last christmas, I gave you my heart, and the very next day, you gave it away._

 

Nico and Leo aren’t a “thing”. They’re not official or cutesy or boyfriends, not like Jason and Percy or Piper and Annabeth or Hazel and Frank. They just… they hold hands sometimes and kiss sometimes and would rather the other not die anytime soon.

So when Leo ends up on Ogygia, while Nico crosses his mind every once in awhile, he’s mostly focused on falling fast and hard for Calypso.

(Lie. Nico’s all he can think about, day and night and everything in between, and sometimes Leo can feel the rough pressure of Nico’s lips on his if he closes his eyes and lets his guard down long enough.)

If Calypso notices his absence during any of their kisses, she never mentions it. After all, they  _ are _ a “thing”.

Leo wonders how Nico would feel about that. Probably fine. Yeah. Fine. Good. Great, even.

But that’s a lie too.

Because when the rest of the Seven and their eighth show up to save him and his girlfriend, Nico’s eyes go dark with jealousy and his lips pout with hurt.

And Leo catches sight of Nico’s hand tangled in a sunny blonde boy’s with freckles whose smile is like the sun and feels his heart drop to his stomach like stones to the bottom of an ocean.

He spends this Christmas surrounded by all of his friends and Nico (because Nico’s not and hasn’t ever been his friend), laughing and grinning and cracking jokes, but his hand shakes in Calypso’s whenever he glances over at Nico and the boy everyone else calls Will snuggled together, and he thinks that if this is what Christmas with people you love actually feels like, maybe he was better off alone.

 

_ now I know what a fool I’ve been, but if you kissed me now, I know you’d fool me again. _

 

 

**9.** _merry christmas, darling. we’re apart, that’s true. but I can dream, and in my dreams, I’m christmasing with you._

 

When the Seven finally face Gaea, they’re unprepared. Not for the fight. Not for the consequences. Not for the fear.

For the casualties.

Because Calypso disappears into smoke after Gaea cuts her down, and Percy and Annabeth fall into Tartarus, and Will is impaled by a weaker monster who sneaks up behind him. Jason and Piper fall to pieces in front of him, weakened by the loss of their lovers, and Nico seems blind and deaf to anything around him but the dead he’s commanding and the living he’s turning into the dead. Consumed by rage and sadness, alone and battling the goddess who will kill him as soon as he reaches her feet.

Leo swallows thickly, pushing down the tears.

He knows what he has to do.

He rushes across the battlefield to Nico, burning everything that comes in his way to ash without even realizing it, and grasps the pale boy’s wrist in his blazing fingers as soon as he reaches him.

Nico turns around in surprise and Leo kisses him, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to keep the trembling at bay.

When he pulls away, Nico’s still frozen, staring at Leo with wide eyes, and Leo grins weakly.

“I love you,” he rasps, and then he lets go.

The clock strikes midnight just as the explosion comes, and he dies the same way his mother does - surrounded by fire and with the screams of a boy ringing in his ears.

 

_ I’ve just one wish on this christmas eve… I wish I were with you. _

 

 

**10.** _ I’ll be home with my love this Christmas. I promise, I promise. _

 

He thought Nico would be happy to see him.

Instead, a pale fist connects with his nose before he can even get a word in edgewise.

“OW!” He screeches, cupping his nose, and opens one of his tightly shut eyes to catch sight of Nico’s thundering expression.

“YOU ASSHOLE!”

Nico’s shaking, fists clenched by his sides and teeth gritted. His posture rigid, his face red. His eyes are wild with rage, but Leo can see flecks of relief and devastation in those beautiful black eyes too.

“YOU LEFT US!” Nico shouts, completely oblivious to the entire camp watching them now. Leo watches him with wide eyes.

“YOU LEFT US HERE WITHOUT YOU! I COULD FEEL YOU DIE, YOU KNOW THAT? I COULD FEEL EVERY OUNCE OF YOUR PAIN UNTIL IT BECAME MY OWN AND I HATE YOU FOR IT! I HATE YOU, LEO VALDEZ, I HATE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.”  
Leo regains his courage and takes a chance, reaching up a shaking hand to touch Nico’s cold cheek with his always too warm hands, treasuring the feel of something real beneath his fingers.

“I love you though,” Leo whispers, voice breaking, the only thing he can think of to say, and the fire in Nico’s eyes burns out into black despair.

He grabs Leo by the front of his shirt and kisses him, long and hard.

“I hate you,” he pants, pulling away and loosening his death grip on Leo’s tee. “I hate you so fucking much for making me love you.”

Then he’s gone with the shadows, leaving Leo alone with hundreds of eyes on his back, until finally he’s tackled by his friends into a messy pile on the ground.

They never let him leave their sight after that, showering him in affection and gifts and Christmas cheer, but without Nico, Leo will always feel empty.

 

_ I promise, I promise I’ll be home. _

 

 

**1.** _ I don’t want a lot for christmas… there is just one thing I need. _

 

Leo never expected to see Nico again.

Nico’s not the kind of guy to give second chances. He doesn’t give his trust easily, so when he does, you’d better not break it. And that’s exactly what Leo did.

But here he is, standing awkwardly in the doorway of Bunker Nine, kicking up dirt with the toes of his converse and refusing to meet Leo’s eyes.

Yet Leo can’t look away.

Nico takes a deep breath.

“Hey.”

Leo blinks.

“... hey.”

Nico looks up and tries for a smile, though it comes out a grimace.

“So, I fucked up.”

Leo shakes his head vigorously, eyes widening.

“No, no, you didn’t. I did.”

This time, when Nico tries to smile, he succeeds, but it’s overwhelmed by melancholy and regret.

“It was me.”

Before Leo can protest, Nico’s crossed the room and wrapped his arms around him, face pressed into Leo’s neck.

“I shouldn’t’ve run away,” he mumbles. “I should’ve stayed.”

Leo slowly remembers how to move and hugs Nico back, wondering how he could’ve possibly ever lived without this boy. Ever even thought he could.

When Nico pulls back, there are angry tears in his eyes. He cups Leo’s face in his hands and chuckles wetly.

“Nico…”

Then Nico throws his head back in a laugh, a real one, and then Leo’s giggling too in wonder. Nico slips his arms up and loosely hangs them around Leo’s neck, eyes sparkling with happiness.

“I should’ve told you that I love you back.”

Leo feels the tears brim and surges forward to kiss him, the two of them melting into each other until to anyone who may be watching, they’re only one silhouette emboldened against the sunset.

When they finally pull back for air, Leo glances down at his watch and up at the snow and then down at Nico and grins.

“Look,  _ ángel _ ,” he murmurs. “It’s Christmas.”

 

_ all I want for christmas is you. _

 

**healing doesn’t mean**

**the damage never existed.**

**it means the damage**

**no longer controls our lives.**

 

**\- somebody**

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm posting this one out of order and it's driving me insane arrrggghhhhh
> 
> ;) hope you guys enjoyed
> 
> Happy Holidays!!!!!!!


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